In this article, I discuss the importance of building a healthy relationship with our own history and past.

We are beings from the past. We’re a collection of memories, histories, experiences and perspective that collectively culminate in the person we are today. We live from the past and live through the past. Families, communities, governments and nations manifest in specific ways because of how they maneuvered through and responded to their past.

We live from the past and live through the past.

Your past will always be apart of your experience – it’s an internal thing – so moving across the street or across the country or across the globe doesn’t and won’t make it disappear. Wouldn’t it be much easier if moving to a different geographical location changed our personal, emotional past? If, by moving our body, we could change the sequence of events that we’ve lived through? Further, we’d like to think that because we’re around people who may not be conscious of our past that we’re new, but our past won’t get up, put on it’s jacket and walk out of our lives simply because we desire it to. We still have to live with ourselves when the lights dim and the curtain closes. We must work to create a world where we honor, value and accept our past and have the tools to move forward.

We must work to create a world where we honor, value and accept our past and have the tools to move forward.

What is your relationship with your own past? Do you love your past? Do you admire and revere it? Have you accepted your history? The relationships we build with our own history are some of the most important ones we can build. These relationships aren’t just about the things that we lived through, but about deeply connecting to the person we were and, by extension, the person we are. We can’t fully understand who we are presently without connecting to the person we once were.

Of course, the goal isn’t just seeing and accepting your past, it’s using your past to transform your present and push you to the future. It’s having the gaze and vision to look at your past with a new perspective, to understand events and happenings in ways that will empower you to make different decisions. The goal is coming to terms with your past so your past doesn’t become your future. They say a people who don’t know their past are doomed to repeat it. And you know what they call people who do the same thing over and over and over again.